You Can Lead An Offense To Water But You Can't Make It Drink

By Brendan Scolari Jun 17, 2009, 11:46pm PDT

The Dodgers lost to the A's 5-4, despite the A's fielders making their best attempt to lead the Dodgers to victory. The loss snapped the Dodgers 3 game winning streak and gave the A's their first win in their last five games. Hiroki Kuroda got knocked around, giving up 5 runs in 6 innings including home runs by Rajai Davis and Jack Cust. Davis' homer was his first since September 5th of last year, breaking a streak of 124 at-bats without a home run. The bullpen pitched 3 scoreless innings of relief, with Brent Leach, Guillermo Mota, and Ronald Belisario all looking good.

On the offensive side, the Dodgers went against 21 year-old Trevor Cahill. Cahill got off to a slow start to the season but has been hot as of late, going 2-0 with a 2.63 ERA in four starts in June. The missed opportunities began in the first inning and continued throughout the game:

In the 1st inning Cahill retired Juan Pierre and Rafael Furcal before walking Orlando Hudson, Casey Blake, and James Loney to load the bases. After three straight balls to Andre Ethier (and 12 in a row) he finally threw a strike. With a 3-1 count Ethier popped out weakly to third base to end the inning.
In the 2nd inning Matt Kemp reached on a leadoff single to right. Kemp proceeded to steal second and third. With one out, Hiroki Kuroda hit a line drive up the middle which Cahill nearly caught but was only able to knock down. Kemp dashed towards home and just snuck his leg under the catcher's glove to touch home plate. Unfortunately, the home plate umpire didn't have a good view so he called Kemp out.
In the 5th inning Pierre doubled with two outs in the inning. Furcal reached base on an error on a ball that was booted by second baseman Adam Kennedy and then Hudson singled on a soft fly ball to left to give the Dodgers their first run.
In the 6th inning Casey Blake lead off by hitting a ground ball to shortstop Orlando Cabrera. Cabrera threw it away and allowed Blake to reach base safely. Ethier doubled and Kemp scored Blake on a sacrifice fly, moving Ethier to third. But after a walk by Russell Martin, Mark Loretta struck out and Juan Pierre bunt grounded out to leave the runners stranded at the corners.
The 7th inning began with a Rafael Furcal walk. Orlando Hudson hit a fly ball to right field which clanked off of Jack Cust's glove, allowing Hudson to reach safely. James Loney then hit a pop up to short, which was dropped again, this time by Orlando Cabrera. Luckily for the A's, Loney was out due to the infield fly rule. Casey Blake and Andre Ethier hit back-to-back singles to plate two runs and put runners on the corners with one out. However, Matt Kemp followed up with an inning ending 4-6-3 double play.
In the 9th inning Furcal led off with a infield single on a ball that Adam Kennedy could have thrown him out on had he not double-clutched the throw. Hudson tried to bunt him over but failed miserably, popping the pitch up right back to th pitcher. James Loney then popped up weakly to third base, his third infield popup of the day. Casey Blake then grounded out to third base to end the game.

On the bright side, 31 year-old rookie Mitch Jones got his first career hit when he looped a broken bat single into right field off of Adam Kennedy's glove. Jones said after the game:

"I'll remember that base hit for a while. I'll also remember last night's at-bat, even though it didn't turn out the way I wanted to. I'll remember that crowd and the experience that I had... I was looking for that sharp single or something in the gap, or even a game-tying home run, that's what you imagined in your mind. Getting that first one out of the way is always nice."

Here's the win probability chart for the game: